Hippo Campus brings memorable music to Korea
Hippo Campus / Courtesy of Pooneh Ghana
By Jon Dunbar
is coming to
Seoul this Sunday for a concert at Rolling Hall
near Hongik University.
“We're stoked to be able to meet new faces and have a blast playing the music that got us there in the first place,” guitarist/vocalist Nathan Stocker said in an email interview with The Korea Times. They also said they are, “Looking forward to eating amazing food, and seeing the city.”
Seoul is the second stop on a 34-city leg of their worldwide tour, which starts in Thailand before returning to North America for the remaining shows in the U.S. and Canada. They have already toured Europe and Australia.
The band is signed to Grand Jury Records in the U.S. and Transgressive Records in the U.K. They has performed at SXSW, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Summerfest, and Reading and Leeds Festivals, as well as appearing on “Conan.” NPR Music named the band one of its favorite new artists of 2017. And they have a following over here too.
“We've received a lot of love from Korean fans over the years and it seemed like the right time to finally pay a visit,” Stocker said. “We're grateful for the support and excited to be in Seoul for the very first time.”
The tour is in support of their
second full-length album, “Bambi,”
released last September. “With the release of our new record, we wanted to play shows in places we hadn't been able to go to yet,” Stocker explained.
The album gets its name from the aunt of vocalist/guitarist Jake Luppen.
“Jake's aunt has a cabin in Wisconsin and we've written a lot of our music there over the years, and recorded a healthy portion of this latest record as well. Her name is Bambi and we couldn't really get away from that title or come up with anything that fit as well as it did at the time.”
The album features their brand of dreamy indie rock delivered with delicate guitar lines, drum machines and synth, with emotionally delivered lyrics that reveal a sense of vulnerability. Lyrical content touches on feelings of anxiety, mental health and trying to embolden oneself to keep going. They say their music is made as an antidote to these troubling times.
“Lyrically, compositionally, and as performers, we never want to provide false advertising,” Stocker said. “We wear our hearts on our sleeves, because we value the human experience as an honest one. True blue genuine interaction.”
As for the name Hippo Campus, the band explains it comes from a high school psychology lesson.
“Serving as a primary source for long-term memory, it seemed like a clever way to make people recognize that if they remembered our band name they would be utilizing the band name,” Stocker said. “We were desperate for finding meaning in everything.”
Tickets cost 55,000 won in advance or 66,000 won at the door. The show starts at 6 p.m. and the opening band is
.